Secrets and Lies
by ariel2me
Summary: Two mothers, two children, and hope. (Elia & Aegon, Lyanna & Jon)


**Elia Martell & Aegon Targaryen**

"There must never be another one, Your Grace. It will kill you, of that I am certain. It almost did, this time."

They had told her mother that too, after Elia was born a month before her time, a tiny, sickly infant not expected to live. But a year later, the Princess of Dorne had given birth to a squalling, red-faced, rudely healthy boy, and lived to tell the tale. And that tiny, sickly infant who came before the boy had lived after all, had become a mother in her turn.

"My mother –"

"You do not have your lady mother's strong constitution, Your Grace."

"You have given my son an heir, and a beautiful daughter too. You have done your duty. It is enough, Elia," the queen said.

But it was not enough for Elia's husband. She could hear it in the mutterings in his sleep, could see it in the cracks in his smile, could feel it in the growing coldness of his touch.

"Aegon will be a great king, as great as the first Aegon Targaryen had been," her husband proclaimed, cradling their son in his arms.

"He will be a good king to his people, I hope," Elia replied, kissing her son's brow. The mention of greatness made her uneasy. How many a king, and prince, had been driven to the lowest depths of follies for the sake of attaining what they perceived as glory and greatness?

"He will need to be a great king, to fight the darkness that is coming, to fulfill his destiny." Rhaegar paused. "The first Aegon had his two sisters by his side."

And dragons. They had dragons too, extinct now for generations. A real Balerion the Black Dread, killing and mutilating countless men and women. Not that cuddly black kitten who could harm nobody, the one Rhaenys insisted on mounting its back and calling Balerion.

Elia much preferred Rhaenys' Balerion to the real thing.

"Our Aegon has his sister Rhaenys," Elia said softly.

Rhaegar smiled, at the thought of his daughter. "He does, yes. Sweet Rhaenys." The smile faded, replaced by a frown. "But he would need … he would need more than that."

"What else would he need, husband, except our love and guidance?"

"Sacrifice. He would need us to make certain sacrifices for his sake."

The nature of that supposed _sacrifice_ appalled her, when Rhaegar finally told her what it would entail.

When Aegon was wrenched from her breast, and she was raging, raging at their assailant, raging at the king and his madness, raging at her powerlessness, she raged too at Rhaegar and his mad obsession. _You wanted greatness for your son. He is the prince who was promised, you said. Then save him! Save him and his sister now, even dead as you are._

**Lyanna Stark & Jon Snow**

When they handed her the babe, and she saw that he was not a girl, the first thing Lyanna said was, "Rhaegar would have been disappointed."

Arthur Dayne looked up with surprise. "Prince Rhaegar would have been overjoyed with the birth of his son, my lady."

_You know nothing. You know nothing about your prince._

She had known nothing too, when she took Rhaegar's hand and fled with him. She had mistaken need for love, obsession for desire.

_He wanted me!_

He wanted a brood mare to bear him a daughter, another Visenya to complete the holy trinity and fulfill his precious prophecy.

_I wanted him._

She wanted to break free from the shackles of a life received; a life determined and bound from cradle to grave, a prison she could never escape. She had believed him to be a kindred spirit, a fellow prisoner, desperately yearning for the freedom that often seemed tantalizingly close, but always, always, out of reach.

And now here she was, in a true prison, a prisoner to Rhaegar's Kingsguard, men loyal still to their dead prince.

And there he was, dead and bloodied at the Trident, without a Visenya to make a third head for his dragon.

She wondered if that had been his last thought, or perhaps even his last word.

Wages of sin, some would call it. Payment for all the bloodshed and the deaths. They deserved worse, some would say, the both of them.

_Our child deserves better_. An innocent, who could no more choose his parents than he could choose the moment of his birth.

"Let me go to my brother," Lyanna had pleaded with Arthur Dayne, before her child was born, when she had strength still to stay on her feet.

"Your brother fights for Robert Baratheon. What do you think they would do to a child of Prince Rhaegar?"

"Ned fights for our murdered father and our murdered brother!"

"Even so, my lady."

"Then find me a ship. I will go to the Free Cities. No one will need be troubled by me or by my child ever again."

The Free Cities. That was where she had been led to believe they were heading, she and Rhaegar, when she took his hand and relinquished everything else. A new life, a new beginning, away from those who would seek to imprison them in a gilded cage.

_Fool! I was a fool_. She had thought herself brave and resourceful, but in truth, she had been a foolish child playing a foolish game, steered by a dark prince playing a darker game.

"We swore an oath to Prince Rhaegar, to stay at Tower of Joy and protect you and the child you're carrying. Do you think my sworn brothers and I would not rather be by Prince Rhaegar's side, fighting this war?"

"I'm sure you would. And you should do so, immediately. Let me go."

"No, my lady. I will not betray my oath. I cannot!"

"What do you think King Aerys would do to my child? A child with Stark blood, traitor's blood in his eyes."

Arthur Dayne looked uneasy. "The king would welcome his grandchild."

A lie, and Arthur Dayne knew it too, Lyanna surmised from the way he quickly turned his face away.

When Ned came to her, there was no King Aerys on the throne. Robert was king, Robert who had been her betrothed, Robert who –

Robert would kill her son; she knew it in her bones, as certain of that fact as she was that she would be joining her father and Brandon soon, in the cold crypt beneath Winterfell.

_No one must know, Ned. No one. Promise me!_

Her son would live. He would live ignorant of his parents' sins, oblivious to his mother's folly and his father's madness.


End file.
